A vote in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives on Wednesday moved Republicans yet another step closer to impeaching Democratic Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner. NBC10’s Rosemary Connors has the details.
What to Know
- Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner is in his second term as the city's top law enforcement officer. He easily won re-election last year after city voters overwhelmingly chose him in a Democratic primary and a general election.
- Republican lawmakers, mostly from other regions of Pennsylvania, have targeted Krasner for most of 2022 over crime in Philadelphia. Krasner describes their efforts as "pure politics" in the leadup to a big midterm election on Nov. 8.
- Impeachment of elected officials in Pennsylvania is extremely rare. Only twice in more than two centuries has it occurred. Here's how the process works.
EDITOR'S NOTE (Nov. 16, 2022, 2:03 p.m.): A vote in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives on Wednesday moved Republicans yet another step closer to impeaching Democratic Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner.
The floor voted 107 to 85 in favor of impeaching Krasner. It was nearly a party-line vote except for one Republican, Allegheny and Washington counties' Rep. Mike Puskaric, who voted against the impeachment. All Democrats voted against, as well.
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The next step is a trial in the Pennsylvania Senate.
"They impeached me without presenting a single shred of evidence connecting our policies to any uptick in crime," Krasner said in a statement following the House decision. "We were never given the opportunity to defend our ideas and policies – policies I would have been proud to explain. That Pennsylvania Republicans willfully avoided hearing the facts about my office is shameful."
Republican lawmakers in the Pennsylvania legislature officially started the impeachment process of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, continuing a months-long effort to forcibly eject an elected official from office.
The articles of impeachment introduced as a resolution last month were approved by a House committee. The full House will now vote before a trial would begin in the state Senate. The introduction of the impeachment articles was expected following several House committee hearings run by Republicans that sought to raise public awareness of their intention to oust the Democratic district attorney.
For months, Republicans have said Philadelphia's crime problem is the main thrust for Krasner's impeachment. Krasner has called Republicans' impeachment effort "pure politics" and has "nothing to do with public safety."
The three Republican lawmakers who first announced plans for impeachment earlier this year represent rural districts west of the Susquehanna River, including two whose districts are along the Pennsylvania-Ohio border.
Impeachment of a Pennsylvania official elected by voters is extremely rare in the state, having happened only twice in 235 years. In both previous instances, the elected officials were judges.
How Would Impeachment Against Philly DA Krasner Work?
The full House will vote on the proposed bill approved by the House committee Tuesday. A simple majority of lawmakers would need to approve it in order to have the state Senate conduct a trial, similar to the one former President Donald Trump went through in 2021.
After a trial, two-thirds of the Senate would have to approve the impeachment charges to remove Krasner from office. That would mean 34 of the 50 senators would have to vote guilty. Following the Nov. 8 elections, the chamber is made up of 28 Republicans and 22 Democrats.
How Rare Is Impeachment in Pennsylvania?
Impeachment is extremely rare in Pennsylvania, with only two instances in the long history of the state. Both times involved a judge, according to PennLive: Supreme Court Justice Rolf Larsen in 1994 and county Judge Thomas Cooper in 1811.
What Has Krasner Said in His Defense?
On the eve of Tuesday's House committee vote, Krasner's office released a statement that read in part, “Instead of learning a single lesson from the historic trouncing they took on Election Day, PA House Republicans are spending their final days in a lame duck majority fighting a lost cause.”
The second-term district attorney, who easily won re-election in November last year, has defended his office's conviction rates in cases involving homicides and gun offenses. In June, Krasner lumped in an impeachment attempt with previous Republican efforts to overturn elections. He also said the blame for gun violence falls on the political party's long-held control of the state Legislature, which has refused to pass any significant firearms control policy
“Pennsylvania House Republicans want to distract you from their decades of failed governance that have led to greater economic inequality and the current crisis of gun violence as they have encouraged the flooding of our communities with deadly firearms," Krasner said in a statement. "Pa. Republican legislators attempted to block certification of presidential election results in 2020 and rank second in the nation for lawmakers who are members of far-right extremist groups, according to a new bombshell report from the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights."
He added, "Democracy- and freedom-loving Pennsylvanians will not be fooled by these anti-democratic efforts to de-value Philadelphia’s diverse votes. Philadelphia is not Pennsylvania’s colony. Our votes count in full, not as 3/5ths of a vote. Stay tuned for these and other efforts nationwide of legislators who would hold hands with hate groups to defeat democracy by both violent and non-violent means. The coup continues as some Republicans try nationally and locally to overturn more elections they lost badly.”
What Has Led Up to the Articles of Impeachment Introduced?
The Pennsylvania House committee that’s moving the impeachment proceedings forward against District Attorney Larry Krasner announced a bill in October that calls for two audits into Krasner’s office.
The House’s five-member Select Committee on Restoring Law and Order, which was established in June to study gun violence in Philadelphia, would evaluate Krasner’s job performance and make “recommendations for removal from office or other appropriate discipline, including impeachment," through those audits.
During a 45-minute hearing on Oct. 25, the committee’s chairman Rep. John Lawrence (R-Chester/Lancaster) said he wanted the state’s Auditor General and the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee to each conduct audits of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office’s use of state funds. The audits would also look into the money spent by the Gun Violence Task Force, a partnership between Krasner, Philadelphia Police and the state Attorney General focusing on gun violence.
“This is an area that we’ve identified that needs additional attention,” Lawrence said.
During Tuesday’s hearing, representatives, mostly from Philadelphia, asked Lawrence about why he and the committee believe there is a need for an audit on top of the existing investigation.
“Proposals for these audits are usually made when an issue, a specific issue, has been identified that causes concern,” Rep. Jared Solomon (D-Philadelphia) said.
After several rounds of questioning, Lawrence dropped an apparent bombshell.
“It was suggested to the committee to review this, to be candid with you, by the Attorney General of the Commonwealth,” Lawrence said.
“Okay,” Solomon replied. “Can you elaborate?”
“I’m going to leave it at that,” Lawrence said.
After the hearing, a spokesperson denied that the Attorney General’s Office made any request for an audit.
“The Office of Attorney General has not made any request for an audit of the Gun Violence Task Force,” a spokesperson wrote in an email. “The statement made at today’s hearing is unequivocally false.”
Lawrence later clarified in a statement that the Attorney General’s Office provided information to the committee as part of its investigation into the District Attorney’s Office.
Krasner Impeachment Efforts
“To be clear, the Attorney General did not request an audit but their participation in the investigation led, in part, to the investigation of HR 239,” Lawrence later said in the statement.
In response to Tuesday’s vote, Krasner defended the work of the gun violence task force and referred to the committee’s ongoing investigation as a political stunt.
A spokesperson for the Auditor General told NBC10, “we carefully consider all audit requests and will do the same with this one.”
Republicans have hammered on crime as a campaign issue in Philadelphia this year and focused criticism on Krasner. A committee lawyer on Saturday asked Krasner to provide sworn testimony behind closed doors on Friday, but talks broke down over the panel’s insistence that his appearance be in secret, and came to an impasse when he said he would do it if he could record it, Krasner said.
“Their answer was ‘No, you get no record of what we asked you and what you said. We get it,’” Krasner told reporters.
Krasner said the committee’s work was part of a Republican effort to blame cities for a wider national gun violence problem that is also felt in the state’s rural, Republican majority counties.
Democrats have argued that Republicans have not moved against GOP district attorneys with recent criminal charges or convictions, and that efforts to reduce gun violence have been blocked in the Legislature. Krasner said those proposals include universal background checks to buy guns and ammo, a ban on so-called ghost guns and “deep and meaningful investments in prevention.”
The Pennsylvania House of Representatives rarely uses its power to impeach public officials. The removal process requires a House majority vote, followed by trial in the Senate and a two-thirds vote. It was most recently used successfully against Supreme Court Justice Rolf Larsen nearly three decades ago.
